


you never forget your first

by alto (themorninglark)



Category: Free!
Genre: Cats, Lots of Cats, M/M, Minor SouRin
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-06-05
Updated: 2015-06-05
Packaged: 2018-04-03 00:52:24
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,414
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4080283
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themorninglark/pseuds/alto
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Makoto's always liked cats (although, let's be real, Shiro-chan is a totally unimaginative name).</p><p>Haruka's always been by his side, watching.</p>
            </blockquote>





	you never forget your first

**Author's Note:**

> For some reason, I thought [this would be a fun idea](http://i.imgur.com/JYgl1Dw.png). I don't know what I was thinking.
> 
> If you keep count, I promise there are actually 21 cats in there, though I was quite liberal with the, uh, definition of what constitutes a cat ^^;;

The second cat of their lives isn’t real.

He is called Maru-chan and true to his name, he is round. He is shaped like a ball. He is grey and furry, and the thought bubble coming out of his head has a picture of a fish in it.

Haruka’s little fingers reach out to touch the outline of the fish, and he says, enunciating his syllables clearly, “ _sa-ba_.”

He traces the curve of its sleek body, mouthing the word under his breath again, like he is discovering the taste of it for the first time.

Makoto giggles, and stares into his friend’s big blue eyes. He scoots forward on his elbows, loses his balance, and flops downwards onto the drawing of Maru-chan the cat in the picture book they are sharing.

 

* * *

 

“What should we do, Haru-chan?”

Haruka turns to look at Makoto.

He is biting down slightly on his lip, and his hands have found the hem of his shirt, twisting it at the seams in that unconscious, nervous way he has.

 _Like I’d know,_ thinks Haruka.

“I don’t know,” he says.

“We can’t just _leave_ them here…”

Makoto’s voice pitches unsteadily, rises a little, just a little. Plaintive and pleading. It’s the same tone of voice he uses when he tells Haruka, in a tiny, embarrassed whimper, that he doesn’t want to switch off the night light because it’ll be dark, and he is afraid.

Makoto like this is not to be argued with.

“You can’t keep them,” Haruka points out. “They’ll eat your goldfish.”

“ _Haru-chan!_ Don’t say that!”

“It’s true…”

Makoto shoots him a reproachful look. He crouches down, lowers a hand into the cardboard box. It’s peeling apart at the front, one corner soggy from spring rain.

Haruka counts the little bundles of fur they’ve accidentally stumbled upon, in this new corner of the neighbourhood behind the ice cream shop. One. Two. Three. Four. Ginger and sooty black.

The smallest of the kittens is white. It is the colour of snow on the mountains. Makoto’s fingers brush past its front paws, and it leans forward, nuzzles a fingertip lightly.

“Makoto,” says Haruka.

He doesn’t need to say anything else. Makoto sighs, and stands up.

Haruka steps forward and reaches for the box.

“I have an idea,” he says.

 

* * *

 

Tamura-san is delighted, just as Haruka knew she would be.

She already has three cats, a dignified striped tabby, a Siamese and a Bengali with the unlikely names of Teru, Tama and Gin Eiichirou the Sixth. There isn’t really, strictly speaking, enough space in her house for four more kittens, but it’s not like the rest of the cats really live _in_ her house anyway. She leaves food at her front door and clean water in the hallway, and the cats wander in, wander out again, curl themselves up by the stone steps of the mountain, and come home to sleep.

Makoto goes over to play with the cats after school. Haruka goes with him. At first, it’s the hours that seem to fly by; then the days, and then, before he knows it, the years.

Seven seems like a lucky number, thinks Haruka, counting the cats in the house. The cats _of_ the house, perhaps, would be more accurate. They’re the little lordlings of the palace, and Tamura-san the Empress Dowager.

They grow up, the kittens.

So do Haruka and Makoto.

Haruka perches on a step, watching Makoto tease the ginger cat with a reed. As the sun sets on them, the shadows of the houses at their backs grow longer, and the sound of the sea in the distance seems to echo through their valley.

 

* * *

 

One day, Haruka points out that Makoto blatantly plays favourites.

“I do _not_ ,” Makoto protests.

He is touchy about this now, now that the twins are walking and babbling and old enough to know if Onii-chan likes one of them better than the other, and Makoto is always very careful to play with each of them the same and sneak them the same number of licks of his popsicle when their parents aren’t looking.

“You like the white one the best,” Haruka points out. He stops short of saying Makoto overfeeds her. She does seem to be getting kind of tubby round the middle.

“Oh.”

Makoto’s shoulders drop. The smile returns to his face. He even manages to look slightly embarrassed.

“I guess I do,” he says, with a laugh. “Don’t tell the other cats, okay, Haru?”

“They don’t care what you think of them,” says Haruka.

“ _Haru_ …”

This is not the plaintive _Haru_ , this is the _Haru_ that Makoto uses when Haruka’s said something that makes him want to cross his arms and give him the older-brother glare, except that Haruka’s really the older one between them and Makoto can never, ever give him _that_ glare, as much as he wants to.

“You should name her.”

“Eh?”

Makoto stops scratching the white cat between the ears. It lets out a soft _mew_ , and blinks.

“She doesn’t have a name?” asks Makoto.

“I don’t think Tamura-san has named these ones,” says Haruka.

“Ah… a name…”

Makoto hugs his knees, and looks at the white cat like he’s studying it.

“I’m not good with names,” he says, with a smile. “I’ll have to think about it.”

 

* * *

 

A few months later, the white cat finally has a name, and Makoto whispers it to her at a mound of freshly turned earth.

“Yuki-chan,” he says, quietly, in a voice like the wind rustling through the poplars.

Haruka wonders if he should reach out for his hand.

They are years past that time now, that time when Makoto’s palm was smaller than Haruka’s and fit into it tightly, snugly, fingers curling tight round the edges of his hand, sweaty with the chill of an irregular pulse.

Haruka wonders -

(but he does not reach)

“Yuki-chan,” says Makoto, “we’ll take care of your kittens.”

There are three of them. The smallest one is white, just like his mother.

The knee-jerk reaction in Haruka’s head dies away before it can even reach the question mark of its completion.

_Who is this we -_

Makoto bends down, pats the soil into place.

_me_

_and you_

And Haruka thinks of snow. Thinks, _well, I guess that name works._

 

* * *

 

The first time Makoto and Haruka meet a non-local cat, it’s an occasion to remember.

They are in junior high, on a school trip to Kyoto to see the temples. The classes are all mixed together, despite the best efforts of the homeroom teachers to maintain something like some sort of order. Haruka is dazzled by the golden reflection of Kinkakuji in the lake. He’s also distracted by Asahi’s gawking and the constant click of his camera.

Makoto is distracted by a mewing from a tree behind him.

Haruka hears it too, but before the sound reaches his ears, he’s already noticed Makoto’s furtive looks, seen the way his gaze keeps darting round their backs.

And when no one's looking, Makoto tugs Haruka by the sleeve.

Haruka goes along (because what else can he do, really).

The cat behind the tree is stormcloud grey. It sits calmly by the roots of the pine, looking up at Makoto, licking a paw.

Makoto laughs, and when Haruka asks him what’s so funny, he says, _it looks like Maru-chan_.

It’s then that Haruka realises they’ve lost track of their group, and when they finally catch up after about an hour (it’s just _so crowded_ here), they get a shelling from both their teachers. It’s the first time Makoto has been in any kind of real trouble.

Haruka is so stunned into insensibility by this sequence of events all that he doesn’t stop to think about Maru-chan till they’re on the bus back, and then he is stunned all over again that Makoto remembers.

 

* * *

 

Haruka stands at the sliding door that opens to his backyard, a small frown creasing his face.

There are three cats near the bushes, and he’s pretty sure he’s never seen them before in the neighbourhood. They are not Tamura-san’s cats. They are a calico cat, a white cat with grey patches on its back, and a cat the colour of ash, with fine white whiskers that catch the moonlight.

Haruka wonders if he should go and get Makoto. It’s late, though. It’s not like Makoto sleeps early, but he knows this is his time with his family, with the twins. He doesn’t want to disturb Makoto for something as trivial as this.

He looks up at the sky. It’s a beautiful night, clear and cloudless.

When he looks back down, the cats have disappeared back into the night.

Haruka wonders if he will see them again.

He goes back into his house, opens a cupboard he hasn’t used in just under a year. In it, there is a small plastic dish that still smells a little of wet dog.

He takes a deep breath, and rinses it clean.

He takes his time.

 

* * *

 

“ _Shiro-chan_?”

“Yeah… why do you look so surprised, Haru?”

“I didn’t know you named him Shiro-chan.”

“I’ve named him Shiro-chan for years.”

“…it means _white_.”

“ _Haru_ …”

 

* * *

 

And when Makoto holds up his goldfish, wondering what he should name them, Haruka has no hesitation in glancing up at the sky with a smile and suggesting _saba, bonito, tuna and jackfish_.

Because if his years with Makoto have taught him anything, it’s that Makoto is terrible with names.

 

* * *

 

Years later, Makoto gently reminds Haruka that he wanted to name his dog _Makoto_.

Haruka tells Makoto that was a perfectly acceptable name. Makoto looks thoroughly unconvinced. He tightens his scarf round his throat and shoots Haruka a _look_.

They stop into a cafe to escape the sudden, biting chill.

It is in Tokyo that they are having this conversation. It feels like the right place to have it.

(Far enough from Iwatobi to be _safe_ to give it voice, far enough from Iwatobi so they can turn their backs and it is small, receding into the distance like the years they left behind when Haruka locked up his house.)

They step out and take a slow stroll down Marunouchi Naka-dori, with lattes in their hands. The trees on either side of the avenue are unfolding into autumn like a sunburst, crisp and gold.

“Ah, I always have such a hard time drinking coffee like this…”

Haruka stares down at his paper cup.

A pair of pointy ears and a smiley face like a rotated number _3_ greets him. It’s the twin of the little foam kitten on Makoto’s cup, whiskers curling upwards just a little bit differently.

Makoto looks at it with a pained smile. “It’s too cute to start drinking.”

Haruka hides his own smirk behind a sip of his latte. _Too milky._

“Also,” adds Makoto, “now, when I see cats, I always think about the time Nagisa said you were like one.”

Haruka had forgotten about that.

He’s no longer surprised, though, about the things Makoto remembers.

 

* * *

 

_Hi Haru!_

_Well, I’m safely in Sydney with Nagisa. The flight was fine. I managed to sleep through most of it thank goodness… I’m typing this email on Rin’s computer. It’s going to be short because the keyboard is weird and in English and it’s hard to use_

_Anyway, Haru, you’re never going to believe it_

_Well, maybe you will. Rin has three cats in his house here._

_THREE CATS!!_

_I kind of knew Rin always liked cats, but I’d almost forgotten about it. Sousuke didn’t, though. The first time he came to visit, he brought Rin to an animal shelter for their six-month anniversary, they adopted the ginger one (see the picture I’m attaching! her name is Amy Pond… uh, Rin says it’s from some time travel TV show) and then it all started from there…_

_Romantic, right? It’s so like them ^_^_

_Nagisa won’t stop squealing and teasing him like “Rin-chaaan I never knew you were such a cat person~” I’ll show you more pictures when I get back._

_We really miss you, and wish you were here. Hope your training camp is going well. I know you’re doing great. It’s you after all, Haru._

_Makoto_

 

_p.s. do you think we should adopt a cat too?_

 

* * *

 

When Makoto walks through his front door, Haruka is holding his ladle and wearing his apron, and he turns on his heel at the sound of the key clicking in the handle.

There is something he has wanted to do for a long time now, ever since it finally dawned on him why Makoto is so bad with names.

It’s not because he lacks imagination; if anything, Makoto has always been the boy with _too much_ imagination, even as his feet stay firmly rooted to green earth. He has always been the boy who reads, and dreams, not in his waking hours like Rin does, but in his sleep.

There are worlds and worlds inside Makoto, and that is why he is bad with names, because his eyes and his heart see the worlds in everything and everyone else too, and how do you put a _name_ to something like that?

Haruka stirs his soup, slowly and deliberately, and breathes in the smell of dashi stock. It reminds him of home. Cooking seafood always does.

Makoto hangs up his jacket. He walks towards the kitchen, waving at Haruka. “Hey, Haru, what are you - ”

And Haruka says, cutting him off, “Do you really want to adopt a cat?”

Makoto stops, stares for a confused moment. He blinks. Then he laughs.

It is a laugh like a dandelion blowing away in the summer breeze, delighted and gentle. It brushes past Haruka’s cheek like a teasing caress.

“Actually,” he says, “I thought about it. And, you know, Haru… Nagisa was right.”

It’s Haruka’s turn to stare, now.

“That you’re like a cat.”

Makoto smiles.

“I’ve always liked cats,” he adds.

“I know,” says Haruka.

“I don’t think I need another one, Haru, as long as you’re around.”

“I’ve always been around,” Haruka points out.

“I know,” says Makoto. “You were the first cat of my life, actually. Before Maru-chan.”

He laughs again, and Haruka smiles.

He puts down his ladle. He reaches behind him to undo the knot of his apron strings.

He does what he has wanted to do, all this while.

And when Makoto whispers his name in his ear, it’s like he’s finally, finally, figured out all of Haruka’s worlds.

 

**Author's Note:**

> WELL, I HOPE YOU ENJOY WHAT YOU HAVE WROUGHT. THAT IS ALL
> 
> (now i never want to write a cat again)


End file.
